The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Including the species observed during the entire voyage, there are only
thirty-three recorded. Only twenty-one species pertain to the Arctic
Ocean, whether as regular migrants or stragglers, after excluding the
twelve species which were observed near the Asiatic coast. The presence
on the shores of the Siberian Sea of some of these twelve, however, is
of ornithological interest. There may be specially mentioned the gray
goose (_Anser segetum_), long-tailed duck (_Harelda glacialis_), silver
gull (_Larus argentatus_), snowy owl (_Nyctea scandiaca_), gray plover
(_Squatarola helvetica_) and the red-necked phalarope (_Phalaropus
hyperboreous_).
Confining ourselves to birds observed to the north of 81° 30, attention
is called to the abundant avifauna of the western as compared with the
eastern hemisphere. In Kennedy Channel, Grinnell Land, there have been
recorded no less than thirty-two species against twenty-one noted by
the _Fram_ in this voyage, including those seen in Franz Josef Land.
This is not surprising, however, when it is considered that the drift
of the _Fram_ was across a deep ocean of large extent, which is covered
perpetually by an unbroken ice-pack, unrelieved by any view of land
until the north coast of Spitzbergen was seen.
Omitting the birds observed in Franz Josef Land, the paucity of species
frequenting the great western Arctic Ocean is even more apparent. The
striking dissimilarity of the four regions traversed by the _Fram_
is plainly evident from the bird-life recorded. While there were
observed nine species in the Siberian Sea, fifteen in the Franz Josef
Archipelago, eighteen in the Arctic Ocean and twenty-three on the
Asiatic coast, yet only five were common to all four regions, viz.:
the dovekie, the glaucous gull, the ivory gull, the kittiwake and the
snow-bird.
The Siberian Sea presented a most limited avifauna, as in addition to
the five common species, there were recorded in the first summer in the
ice only the little auk, the fulmar, the roseate gull and a small skua.
The entire absence of land or shore birds that frequent Arctic islands,
omitting a single straggling snow-bird, indicates clearly that the
Siberian Sea extends far northward unbroken by any land area.
The eighteen species of birds that were found in the Arctic Ocean,
far to the north, naturally demand special comment. The six following
species are doubtless stragglers: the ringed plover (_Aegialitis
hiaticula_), 82° 59′ N., the most northerly shore-bird of Spitzbergen,
Nordenskiold having observed it on Seven islands, 80° 45′ N.; the
eider duck (_Somateria mollissima_), 82° 55′ N., near Spitzbergen; the
arctic tern (_Sterna macrura_), 84° 32′ N.; the puffin (_Fratercula
arctica glacialis_), 83° 11′ N., near Spitzbergen; the black-backed
gull (_Larus marinus_), 84° 35′ N. 75° E., and the Sabine gull (_Xema
Sabini_), 83° N., near Spitzbergen.
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